Retracting Headlines
by Someonerandome
Summary: Post Reichenbach. John is determined to clear Sherlock's name after his death and solve the mystery surrounding Moriarty on his own, no matter what the cost. But as with any case not all is what it seems...


**Disclaimer**: I don't own it.

**A/N**: One thing you should know before reading this story is that I am experimenting with writing accents in a lot of this fic's dialogue. This means a few things including a) I would like some constructive criticism on how to improve (please please please I need help!) and b) if I screw it up royally it is _**not **_intended as any sort of slur, stereotype or otherwise as some sort of insult; it is just inexperience.

**Chapter 1**

"…maybe you can tell me how you're doing today? John?"

John jumped slightly at the change of tone in his therapist's voice. He had been staring out the window of her office. Rain was pelting against her window. Again. Why did it always seem to rain when he came to see his therapist these days? He knew there was a literature term for the weather mimicking someone's mood in a novel but couldn't be bothered to strain his memory for something he'd learned in a mandatory English course at Uni eons ago. He thought dimly that he hadn't brought an umbrella but also found that the lament was more habitual than anything. He didn't really care.

"Sorry," he said, jumping a little at her words "What?"

"You know, I can't really do my job if you aren't willing to talk to me," she reminded him kindly "So far we've had four sessions since you resumed and I don't really think we've been any more successful than we were eighteen months ago."

"Wonder why…" John muttered before he could catch himself. His therapist raised an eyebrow and shifted in her chair slightly. The ex-soldier swallowed a little guiltily.

"Sorry," he said, shifting in his chair as well "That was uncalled for."

"You're still grieving, John. It's understandable. You suffered a great loss. He was more than just your friend,"

"Oh for god's sake! For the last time, we were _flatmates_! I. Am. Not. Gay!" John snapped irritably, practically shouting the last words and glaring at the woman sitting across from him. His jaw set and the hand resting on the chair arm clenched against an on-coming tremor. He had been free of the shaking for over a year. Now in the last few weeks they had returned. The therapist stared at him back impassively and twiddled her pen in her fingers.

"I didn't say you were." The therapist replied coolly. He flushed at the calm tone and she continued "There's more than one kind of love, John. And he was obviously very good for you. You didn't need to see me for eighteen months, your limp cleared up and you stopped shaking. He kept you alert, active, busy— all things that any psychiatrist might prescribe a traumatized patient. Now that focal point is gone. It's been a lot for you to deal with for the past few months."

"But it isn't just that he's gone," John insisted, his hand shaking "It's what people said about him, what they are _still_ saying about him. The man was pushed to…" John stopped, ground his teeth once and then started again "He's gone. They did it, those bloody, stupid, narrow-minded little people in the tabloids destroyed him and they're still not happy! It's just…" he trailed off. For a few moments there was silence in the room that was thick with tension as John clenched his teeth and his fist again, his gaze distant as he looked resolutely out the window. The woman across from him jotted something down on her clipboard that be didn't bother to read.

She was watching him, he could tell that without looking around. Lots of people seemed to be watching him now. He'd caught a couple of cameramen outside the flat and yelled at one for cornering Mrs. Hudson. He'd expected it to be in some form of gossip column later—they were just eating up the story about Sherlock's 'fraud'—but it hadn't. If he were to be generous he might suppose that the man had felt guilty for frightening such a harmless old lady, but he doubted it. He might be slightly more generous and suppose that Mycroft felt guilty and had cut the story. That was unlikely as well, though, considering that stories were persisting in the papers period. No, the most likely thing was that something far more interesting and juicy had cropped up than a frail-looking land-lady taking her rubbish bags out to the bins. Probably some celebrity had stumbled out of a night club topless or something equally stupid…besides. It had been months. They would simply be flogging a dead horse to continue with it, surely…

"John, why do you think you're so angry? At the press?" The therapist inquired. The Doctor looked around at her again and blinked. He tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes as though not quite sure he had heard her.

"I'm sorry, my best friend topped himself because of them and now they're slandering his name and you are asking me _why I think I'm angry at them_? For god's sake, they can't even stop now that they've killed him! D'you know that some photographer _actually_ cornered my landlady behind our flat trying to interrogate her? If he weren't holding a camera, they'd call it assault, harassment, intimidation at the very least! But because he's documenting his attack for a paper, there's nothing that anyone wants to do about it! And you seriously want to know _why I'm angry?_"

"It's just that I can't help but wonder if you might be…" she twirled her pen slightly in the air as she thought carefully of how to phrase her question "…_projecting_ a bit."

"For god's sake…What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've been painted as a fool. As you said, the papers are not being kind to you or to anyone associated with Mr. Holmes. Don't you think it could be possible that you're angry with yourself for believing him?"

John froze. His therapist sensed her mistake immediately judging by the subtle change in her expression but it was impossible to retract her words at this point. She thought he was angry at himself for _believing _Sherlock. For believing his "lies". The ex-army doctor didn't say a word. His mouth set in a grim line as he stared at her with intensity. His hand stilled its trembling.

"John," she started. He ignored her and got to his feet, heading for the door. "John, stop. I didn't mean it like that, John!" The door closed behind him. The therapist sighed and leaned her head into her fingertips, swearing at herself. She had a feeling that it would be some time before John Watson would return again, if he ever would.

John had no intention of going back. Even his own therapist thought he was the poor, stupid, duped victim of a con-artist! And those that didn't think him the victim were sending him nasty letters about his part in the "con". None of them understood, they just believed what they were told. None of them were willing to _look_. To _think_. He finally understood some of Sherlock's frustration at the common man. None of them knew what they were talking about. Mrs. Hudson was the only one who really understood, who had known him. She was the reason he'd returned to Baker Street, though he'd moved into the basement flat that she'd had trouble filling. The upstairs flat had too many memories, he saw him everywhere in it, particularly since he hadn't had the heart to move any of Sherlock's things out of it. It was like a shrine to the deceased genius. The one that everyone believed was… ...fake.

John's angry stomping down the streets halted when he took a shortcut around the back of a building and saw it. He couldn't help but feel touched, his eyes pricking slightly and a reluctant, sad smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He swallowed and looked at the ground before glancing up at it again, the tugging at the corner of his lips not quite going away.

"See Sherlock?" he murmured to himself "I'm not the only one who doesn't believe that you lied."

In bright red on the grey brick was the message "BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK" spray painted with the confident hand of an experienced graffiti artist. Beneath the words was an image: the achingly familiar silhouette of a man with curly hair, a dangling scarf and a long coat walking away from the viewer. The Doctor shook his head in appreciation, struggling with his emotions even whilst keeping them rigidly under control.

"D'you like it?" a voice from behind him inquired. John turned to see a familiar young man crouched in the landing of a fire escape, a bottle of spray paint dangling from his fingers. The Doctor blinked and frowned slightly in recognition as he took a step towards the rickety metal stairs of the fire escape.

"I know you. You're that graffiti artist…"

"I 'elped you an' 'im out with that case, 'elped you find them funny tags. The ones in yellow."

"You got me arrested." John said, though his widening smile belittled any indignation in his voice. The youth grinned

`Yeh, sorry `bout that mate. I already 'ad two strikes, see."

"All forgotten." John assured him. He motioned back to the piece behind him "Still at work then?" The youth grinned again

"D'you like it?"

"It's a masterpiece. I'm glad not everyone thinks…well, you know,"

"Thinks he was a total nutter?" The young man finished for him "Well, he mighta been, but he was a bloody brilliant nutter. I knew 'im for years, and so did a bunch of me mates. We saw 'im at work just like you did. Got more'n a few of us outta trouble afore, too, though we mighta' done a fair share of running."

John huffed slightly in amusement and smirked as he recalled some of the more poignant chases he and Sherlock had conducted, though a painful memory of running handcuffed together from the police right before the fall chased the happier recollections. He stared off down the alleyway absently for a few minutes before the tagger spoke up again, snapping him out of his thoughts

"We're not the only ones, you know." the youth said.

"Sorry?" John asked with a slight frown, not quite following. The young man pointed to his work

"That there's a movement. Dunno who started it, but it's catching like fire it is. I know a few of 'em apart from meself, I can introduce you to some of me mates, but it's not just taggers and homeless gits. These are gonna start showing up in loads of places soon."

"But he's been disgraced, the public turned on him…"

"Yeh, an' ev'ryone he ever took a case for," Said a new voice from higher up on the fire escape. John craned his neck up to see a thin young woman with short, vividly pink hair, several piercings, even more tattoos and purple lips leaning over the black railings, her large platforms clacking slightly on the rickety metal. She turned her attention to the tagger, nodded her head and jerked her thumb in the direction of the end of the alleyway.

"Bobbies headin' this way, Raz. Two minutes, tops." She said. The tagger nodded with a grin at her

"'fanks luv," he said with a wink "Dunno where I'd be wiv out yeh."

"Waitin' for bail?" the girl retorted with a wink while John struggled to remember and figure out whether that style was considered punk or goth or hip…god, when had he gotten old?

"Meet yeh back at the rink?" Raz asked. The girl grinned at him, showing uneven teeth and blew him a loud, smacking of a kiss before stepping agilely through the window of the abandoned flat, disappearing from view. The tagger hopped down from the fire escape with a clang and jerked his head in the opposite direction that his friend had indicated, inviting John to join him as he started to jog away. The doctor did so with a slight spring in his step. There was a familiar, if grievously lessened, elation to the danger of being caught –or rather, to the danger itself. Any form of adventurous risk.

"So was that your girlfriend back there?" John asked the young man once they were safely out of range of the alleyway and could slow to a walk. The tagger frowned slightly in confusion at first and then laughed

"Nah, she's jus' one of me mates. I'll introduce yeh to the rest of the gang,"

"So she's one of the other taggers you were talking about? The ones you're going to introduce me to?" he inquired, eager to have company other than Mrs. Hudson who didn't either shoot him pitying looks or sniggers at his idiotic folly. It would be nice to be around someone who didn't think his best friend some sick fraud, even if it was just a group of kids.

"Yeh, she is. Not all of us are, though. Yeh wanna meet 'em?"

"Very much," John said, meaning it. It was just then that he realized with a little chagrin that he didn't actually remember something that might be good to know: "Sorry, I don't think I ever did catch your name," he said.

"Oh yeh, Call me Raz."

"Raz, right. Nice to meet you again."

"You too, Doctor, come on, jus' round 'ere," Somehow their feet had carried them to the skate park that Raz had found the Black Lotus sign so long ago.

It was a hub of activity as usual. Younger folk, mostly teenagers and people in their twenties, though he did see a couple who looked to be closer to his age. Raz led him over to a small group hanging around a particularly graffiti-laden ramp on which some of them were doing some tricks. Three were on skateboards, one rode a bike. As the pair neared them the bloke on the bicycle went down the arch and was launched into the air. John tensed for a moment, ready to rush forward and offer his medical services when the lad and his bike summersaulted into the air in one seemingly slow motion. The next moment, however, his front wheel connected with the arch in a smooth landing and he rode the arch again back to the other side with an expression of pride as everyone (including the bike-rider) cheered and applauded him. He high-fived the other people on his ledge and then blew a kiss to the girl and the boy on the other side. The girl imitated catching the kiss and pocketing it jokingly before laughing at what was apparently an inside joke.

Raz cupped his hands around his mouth

"Oi!" he yelled to get their attention. The group looked up and Raz gestured to John, "Ev'ryone, this is Doctor John Watson. _The _John Watson. John, ev'ryone,"

"Everyone" rolled their eyes.

"_Ignore_ 'im," the pink-haired girl from the alleyway said with fond exasperation as she walked over. She startled John a little by looping her arm through his and leading him over as though they were at a dinner party or something. She extended one arm with mock decorum and put on an imitation of a formal announcer at an old fashioned posh ball. She sniffed snobbishly

"May I present," she began in a trill "Sir Rides-a-lot—also known as Max, the madman on the bloody red bike!" everyone laughed at this and the boy on the bike, Max, winked at her. She continued

"The Lady MacBeth—sometimes called just Beth, our local theatre student," a girl with a baggy t-shirt, sweatpants and a simple ponytail—no piercings or tattoos—did a flourishing stage bow for him

"Venetian Count Tony, who occasionally feeds his humble subjects with delicious pizzas made with the leftovers from the family pizzaria," There was a cheer at this and John found himself smiling. The introductions went on. He couldn't keep all the names straight after only hearing them once, though he was introduced to a Jack, a Raj, a "Bulldog", a Li, a 'Shredder' (apparently for some proficiency at skateboarding move or something), and an Esther, each introduction as ludicrous as the last. Some of the skater's made an entrance at their unveiling with a trick, though a couple of them just rolled down off the ramp and gave him a bow or some sort of salute. The pink-haired girl herself was Belle, apparently, though her Graffiti artist name was Tinker, something John found at once amusing and suitable to her pixie-like appearance.

"We like to 'fink of ourselves as the Society of Deduction," Raz said with a grin

" 'Ere Doc," one of the youth's said as he reached behind the radio they had blasting out tunes and pulled out a bottle of beer. He popped the top off it with his teeth and held it out to him. "Why don't you 'ave a beer? It's on us,"

"I appreciate it, but I have to go into work in a few hours." He said. He was relieved when the young man shrugged understandingly and passed the bottle over to one of his mates, nonplussed and un-offended. John did accept a cola, however.

The group of kids was just that: a group of kids. Raz was one of the oldest it seemed; most of them were in their early twenties or their teens. As they sat around watching some of the skaters practice their tricks some more, obviously pleased with a new audience to perform for. Raz started filling him in on how they had gotten together amidst the scandal of their hero or "associate" as Sherlock might have dubbed them. As the tagger talked the group started to wander away from the skate ramp and over to the group sitting down. One girl with long dark hair under a floppy hat plonked herself next to the doctor on the stone steps they were lounging on, resting one elbow lazily on her skateboard and extending her other forearm towards him. She wore a tank top but the arm she showed him had a green, finger-less, elbow-length glove on it. Emblazoned on said glove in bold, blocky yellow letters was the phrase "_BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK" _

"We've got more." The young man with the bike—Max— said, pulling up his backpack to show a pin reading the same thing. Others took out different home-made paraphernalia with the same phrase; buttons, rubber key chains, some embroidery on clothing, paint on bikes…John also noticed more graffiti with the phrase in the Skate park and it didn't look like Raz's style. John was once again oddly touched. He was aware of them all watching him expectantly. He wasn't entirely sure what they wanted from him through so he simply smiled again and nodded slightly

"This is great," he said, "It really is, thanks for showing it to me," he told them. A few smiled back but others stared at him blankly.

"Well?" Raz said

"Well what?"

"What are we going to do about it?" the Scottish student Beth asked

"Yeah, you're a military man, you got a plan don't ya?" the biker asked.

"A-a _plan_?" John asked, confused.

"Fer clearing his name," The dark haired welsh girl next to him said, the vowel stressed and the 'r' rolled ever so slightly in the accent typical of southern wales. She watched him with greenish eyes made a little unnerving in that they didn't seem to blink. It was a familiar look, but he couldn't place it, not that he was overly concerned with it at the moment as he was a little preoccupied.

"Look, I'd love to, but when the papers get something between their teeth…I think the damage might be irreparable." He said

"You've given up?" one of them asked incredulously. John opened his mouth and closed it again, trying to figure out how he could explain this to these youths.

"Look, I know that none of it was true, but—"

"So do we. All of us." Raz told him "I worked wiv 'im, Belle met 'im, Tony over there was one of 'is cases, so were a bunch more we know."

"Think ab_ou_t it, do-oc," The welsh girl said, "You're not the _o_nly one people arre calling st_u_pid or a l_ia_r. Ev'ryyone who ever told anyyone that Sherlock Hoollmes helped them looks the s_a_me. There's a whole network of people willing to help an' there's _e_ven more who don't like the bitch that k_ee_ps writing ab_ou_t it."

"What? Kitty Riley?"

"Aye, Max and I both know 'er," Beth-the-Scottish-student said, "Know _of_ 'er, at least. That's what got us in. She did something on Max's mum that was based on bad information so who's t'say she couldn't have made the same mistake again?"

"So just…what are you getting at?" John asked cautiously, more for confirmation of his suspicion than actual ignorance of their meaning

"Look, we've all read yer blog, yeah? 'ow you an' 'im solved all them myst'ries, right? Well, we were finkin' that maybe the blog needs a be'er endin'." Belle said, talking with her hands a bit as she did so. Raz looked over his shoulder slightly and bit his thumbnail in a sort of 'tuff' way before crouching down like the others in a conspiratorial manner.

"Yeh know, a real ending. Where ev'ryone knows the truth," Raz added

"What's one more case?" The dark-haired girl asked, watching him carefully with piercing green eyes. "Easy enough, don't you think? With all this 'elp?"

John looked around at all the eager faces staring back at him and sighed. It was tempting; it was more than tempting. The doctor's gaze came to rest on the graffiti bearing that wonderful inscription. Then he looked at the faces again. The rather _young_ faces which were so eager and full of expectation that he didn't want to be responsible for. Not anymore anyway. He sighed and shook his head again.

"No," he stated firmly "I'm sorry, but…no," With that he got to his feet and started to trudge off with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the chill of the morning. His leg felt stiff again. He was well aware of the incredulous stares that followed him out. If he had turned around, however, he might have noticed that one of those bright-eyed faces followed him with far more than shock and incredulity written in their expression. One of them was angry. One of them was _annoyed_.

John didn't turn around, however, and he didn't see it. Instead, he saw the graffiti slogans that now seemed to dominate the skate park, painted over other designs in strong colours to mark the territory as a space of fierce support for the dead detective, making him wonder if there might not just be a possibility of clearing his friend's name after all. The corner of his mouth twitched as he remembered one of his dead friend's favourite little sayings and as he passed the piece that Raz had been working on when he ran into him he stopped again, looking up at his friend's silhouette.

"I'll tell you what, Sherlock," he muttered rhetorically to the painting "I might not be a genius like you, but I'm not done yet. The game is on,"

* * *

**A/N: Please review. If anyone has any tips for writing accents into dialogue (i.e., scottish, welsh, etc. John might be doing some travelling!) let me know :) I would really appreciate it!**


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